


Through the Ages

by highonbooks



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Not Canon Compliant, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-19
Updated: 2014-06-19
Packaged: 2018-02-05 09:44:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1814008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/highonbooks/pseuds/highonbooks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You saw me before I saw you</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through the Ages

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Tomione Kink Meme’s First Random Summer Writing Challenge, whose prompt was a second person story that began with 'You saw me before I saw you'

You saw me before I saw you.

Do not get me wrong, you are very eye-catching in your own way, but in that night I was distracted. Some friends had me dancing with another girl, some blonde-haired woman from another country and then I saw you and everything went downhill from that.

I am sorry, I am rambling, but to put into words what it is to finally see you again after everything is hard, you cannot imagine how hard it is, but I will try to explain.

You first saw me in the New Year’s Eve ball at Malfoy Manor, back in 1948, when I was dancing with the host’s cousin and I felt your eyes burning a hole into my skull. I looked and we stared at each other for a second. Curiosity burned in me, because I was sure you were not supposed to be there and I guess you already knew who I was because there were very few people at the time who could have so much hatred for me. Most were dead too. Therefore, after that dance I went looking for you, asking to my colleagues if they saw any bushy haired girl, but you were gone and nobody had seen anyone like you.

That made sure I wasn’t going to forget you very soon.

After, I went travelling, searching for the darkest arts, the foulest beasts and the deeds without names that I could master and control. I was hungry for more power, more secrets, more life and if I were to make my dreams reality, I needed those forces with me.

Your visage came with me, walking through my dreams, those brown eyes judging every move I made. There was one, a nightmare I would say years after, where I chased you through Malfoy Manor. You were fast, but I knew the place better and when I caught you, because I always caught you, you looked at me and turned into smoke. I would wake up sweating and hard in my trousers, searching for you wherever I was sleeping in for the night.

I admit, I desired you. More than I ever desired any other human being. Your face was the only one I could remember with clarity even after years of solitude and fastidious practice of my favorite kind of magic.

Of course, everything good must end, so, sooner than I would like, I was back to England and to my careful plans.

You might not believe, but I am a sentimental men. I am romantic. I like to go back to my haunts and to places I felt good, trying to feel again those same emotions. I put my earliest piece of soul into the care of Lucius Malfoy, because he would put my diary in his Manor, and in some way I would still be there, were we met. Waiting for you, I would even content with a piece of your soul too. Just a fragment of each other frozen in time.

Things started going my way then, and I forgot you.

No, please, not forever. Never forever. I would imply that I could forget you, and I could not. I still cannot. What I mean was that it was war, and I was winning and that was a condition sine qua non to not obsess about you whenever my mind was relaxed.

See? It took war to get you out of here, even if for a moment.

Then there was that wretched prophecy.

I was so angry my dear; can I call you my dear? I will, if you may. So, so angry. It seemed to me unfair that after all that work, all my sacrifices to that cause were for nothing. 

Some brat was going to come and ruin everything.

You can see why I had to act, don’t you?

Isn’t it the most primal instinct, the one to live? That is all I ever wanted, you know, to live. Forever, yes, but to live.

I finally got my information, and in October 31th of 1981, I went to kill the Potters.

I fucked up, of course. You do not like this language, dear? I am sorry, truly, but that was what happened. I fucked up. Cost me eleven years, so I should be able to say it now with less hate. It was my mistake.

The good thing was that now all I could do was think, and that made you again queen of my mind. Through the rage and the despair of being a bodiless being, a loser in my own game, you were a balm. Ever judging and ever elusive, you had stayed with me. 

Some will say it is a lie, but I reward well all of those who are loyal to me.

But as I said, when things start going my way, I forgot you. Better, you retired to a deeper part of my mind where no one could ever take you from me.

Possessing Quirrel, I saw you again. A little girl, yes, but I saw you again.

I learned your name, Hermione. My dear. My shadow.

Which now presented me with another riddle: how have we meet, so many years ago, if you were a child now? Did I meet your grandmother perhaps? Or mother? Or it was actually you, your future meeting my past somehow. But why? And how did you managed that? I could see that you were smart, above your peers just as I was back then, but what I was imagining should not be possible.

I decided on doing nothing about you. Shadow or not shadow, I had more things to worry about. Like being bodiless again. I know, I know, I fucked up again. Great dark lord I am, right? Just a joke dear. Do not look like that to me; I am getting to our present.

Wormtail came to me, and I suppose the rest you know. Getting a body, getting my followers back, trying to get that prophecy, trying to kill Potter. Keyword trying. Here with you, 

I can be sarcastic, and even funny. You see? I can be many things. All you have to do is ask me what you want.

So here we are, 1997, back at Malfoy Manor, at a cusp of a problem: somehow, you have to go back in time, because now I know it was you that I saw, but I risk you changing everything because you are loyal to your friends locked downstairs. You do not do that, I do not think about you for all my adult life, we do not have this meeting and nothing changes.

I am rambling again, I am sorry dear. Seeing you, actually seeing you is making me feel things I have not felt for almost 20 years now. More, I guess. I stopped counting time because, to me, counting implies an end to it. My life will not end. I guess you have learned about my horcruxes, yes? A bit crude, I admit, but very ingenious.

What? A monster, me?

Well, yes, when you put it like that. Sometimes I forget you have not though of me like I thought of you. I might have idealized you a lot. Don’t get me wrong, you are everything I hoped you would be, but perhaps we should be better suited as dreamer and dream.

Dear Hermione, what do we do now? Where do we go from here? Where do I go from here?

This screaming you are hearing? Bella is taking care of your friends. What, you thought I would let Harry Potter come into my hands and go free because I wanted to speak to you?

I am romantic, but I am done being a fool, my dear.

Oh they stopped. Good.

Don’t cry Hermione dear, it was for the best. Well, my best. Now there is no one else to cut my life short and he will serve as a reminder of my power to other who might try to defy me again. 

Sorry, what was it? You won’t help me? I did not ask for your help, dear. I have all the help I need from my followers. Your part in my new world is all up to you now.

You can live in it, or you can die in it.

It is your choice.

I have proven myself to be able to live with only your face haunting my dreams, Hermione Granger, you being here or not does not make me feel any less or worse.

I do, however, enjoy some company now and then. 

Even monsters, like you put so well, need someone to talk to. Nagini is my familiar, but she cannot discuss things with me. I can be good to you, my followers will tell you that much, I can be good. I do not feel desire from this body, if that what is holding you back from saying yes. You will need nothing while with me, and all I ask is that you stay. Stop running from my dreams Hermione and stay. For a day if it is that how much it takes you to escape this place. 

Stay.

Good choice, my dear.

This will be one of your greatest achievements in life: you ran from me before you were born to be finally caught where we begin.

As in my dreams, I always catch you.


End file.
